cc >> Paul Rogovitch: Good
afternoon and welcome to another History Sandwiched In at the
Wisconsin Historical Museum. Today, we're very lucky
to have back Hank Whipple, who has been here before.
Many people have probably seen him here before, or in other
venues. He's an emeritus member of the
Board of Curators at the Historical Society.
His specialty is maritime history and preservation.
He lectures. He writes.
He's won the Mystic Seaport prize
for maritime history writing. And if you've never been to
Mystic Seaport, you should go. Today, we're more riparian,
I think the word is, rather than maritime, right?
Riparious, is that correct? >> Riverine, we're using.
>> Riverine, okay. We're combining this with the
150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War.
Hank Whipple will talk about the Union's plans on the Mississippi
River. So please welcome Hank Whipple.
( applause ) >> Hank Whipple: Thank you
very much. I stopped down here Saturday
after lunch to see how the advance rush tickets were going.
( laughter ) And my god, all these people
out there... ( laughter )
And I got home, I told my wife, and she said,
"It weren't for you." ( laughter )
But that's one of the leveling actions.
The definition of an expert is two fold.
One, you're over 25 miles from home.
I don't make that. And two, you're spouse
is not in attendance. I don't make that today, either.
( laughter ) I'd just like to call to your
attention this month's issue of the Naval History magazine
from the U.S. Naval Institute is on the Civil War Navies,
so you might find that of particular interest and use.
The Civil War is always looked upon is, I think in all of our
ideas, are land battles. Bull Run, Gettysburg, Antietam,
this type of thing. We all know about these.
But the conflict of the war between the states was also
involved on the rivers, harbors, along the coast, and the bays of
American waterways. So here we have the Civil War
starts, we have the non-green are the Union states, and here
we have the Confederate states. Although the naval engagements
of the Civil War may not have been as well known to the
public, and there were fewer of them, and they were less bloody.
But the effort to blockade the southern ports and the conquest
of the western rivers were important factors in the war's
outcome. At the start of the war, neither
side was prepared for any kind of a war at sea.
The Union had about 90 ships of various types and sizes, of
which only five were ironclad steam frigates.
The Confederacy had none. Wood was no longer a substitute
for warships, as both England and France already had ironclad
navies. Unlike the North, the South had
neither the facilities for metal fabricating, nor men or skills
to do it. By war's end, we would see that
the Union navy would have 670 ships and the South did manage
to come up with 50. The key players in the strategy
is Winfield Scott, who was the senior army member.
He was the hero out of the Mexican War.
You had Gideon Wells, the Secretary of the United States
Navy, and Mallory, who was the Confederate Naval Commander.
Unlike his contemporaries, it was pretty clear to Scott that
to win the war in the south, they would have to invade the
south. They would also have to cut off
its source of supplies and its source of ability to export, as
they were dependent on European markets.
This was not the generalized philosophy among Union
commanders. They had sort of a capture the
flag mentality. On to Richmond.
Once we took Richmond, the Confederate capital, the whole
thing would fold. At least that was their
thinking. It took them four years to get
there, by the way, to go the 100 miles from Washington, DC,
to Richmond.
In order to blockade the South, they had to go all the way from
just about Newport, Virginia, all the way down to Florida,
around over to the gulf, over 3,500 miles, until they got to
the Rio Grande River. There were about 180 ports in
the Confederacy. The other thing that part of
Scott's thought was the blockade would give them time to build a
Union army. They didn't have a substantial
army. And he knew that if they went
down south, they would be invading.
The war would have to be an invasion of the south.
The South would be fighting a defensive war for their homeland
and they'd be close to supplies. All these things were not really
good from a Union strategy.
The North had the strategic advantage over the South.
Just to give you some figures on it, they ad a population
of 23 million. The South had nine, of which
3.5 million were slaves, not necessarily a dependable group
from the Confederacy's point of view.
The North had 100,500 factories. The South had 20,000.
The North produced 540,000 bushels of grain a year,
versus 331,000. They had 20,000 miles of
railroad lines, as opposed to 9,000.
Their bank deposits were $180 million, as opposed to
$45 million.
If we look at this comparative chart, basically the colors,
blue is the Union, gray is the Confederacy.
You can see how all these different populations,
agriculture, livestock, railroad.
All the advantage was to the North.
And the South strategy had to be, make a war so protracted and
costly to the North that the population would start losing
interest, similar to what was going on toward the end of the
Vietnam War. That was a strategy that was an
effective strategy. Only Scott had the vision to see
what needed to be done. He recommended this to Lincoln.
After a cabinet debate, he prevailed with Lincoln, so the
blockade and the riverine activity started as the
commencement of the war against the South.
Scott's plan was dubbed, sarcastically by the media,
the "Anaconda Plan." An anaconda is like
a boa constrictor. It goes around its victim and
really strangles it to death. They were doing this as a joking
approach to things. Under Scott's plan, it involved
joint army and navy operations, which would advance down the
Mississippi River, to divide and conquer the South, while army
support would blockade the Atlantic and Gulf Coast and take
the port cities.
Let's look at the river campaigns.
Here we have the Mississippi River.
This is Cairo, Illinois. The places we'll be talking
about are Fort Davidson over here on the Tennessee and
Cumberland Rivers, Ten Mile Island on the Mississippi,
Memphis. You come on down to Vicksburg
and then New Orleans. As I indicated, it took four
years for the "On to Richmond" people to finally get to
Richmond. But the blow which turned out to
be a fatal blow to the Confederacy was the maritime
attacks on the western rivers and along the coast.
The western rivers plan was by gaining access and control of
the Mississippi, and also controlling the tributaries,
this would allow the Union to advance deep into the South,
and also have a supply line via the water.
You can see that these rivers, the Tennessee River runs way
down into Alabama. It goes over here
to Muscle Shoals. The Cumberland River comes on
down through most of Tennessee. The rivers would then be used
for the purpose, as I indicated, supporting the land operations.
West of the Mississippi, we had the Arkansas and we had the Red
River. This also was a riverine
operation from the Union. The Mississippi struggle was the
longest and the most challenging and diverse campaign of the
Civil War. It involved the widespread use
of ironclads, steam-powered gunboats, modern fortifications,
amphibious riverine landings, and the employment
of naval mine, which was then called a torpedo.
Not only would this new form of warfare dominate the western
rivers, but the struggle would take place in a hitherto
unimaginable geographical scale, stretching 700 miles from Cairo
down to New Orleans.
Captain David Farragut, who I think maybe even now
he got promoted to Admiral in our audience today,
I noticed his uniform. ( laughter )
All right. He commanded the Union forces on
the New Orleans operation. The army commander was Major
General William F. Butler. They would start in the Gulf and
go up to the river, with the idea, or the goal was to get up
and take New Orleans up here.
The South had no city more important than New Orleans.
It was the funnel through which poured all of the agricultural
products of west of the river, and those on the near east side
of the river. It was the source of imports and
exports for that whole western part of the Confederacy.
It also was the railroad head for all the major railroads
leading to southern cities. In addition, it was also the
manufacturing hub of the south. They had more machine shops and
shipyards than any other city in the South.
This was obviously recognized by Scott and adapted by Lincoln as
a policy. The initial attempt at
blockading the Confederacy in New Orleans didn't turn out
well. Starting up the river, you have
what they call three passes in the delta area, that lead into
one channel. They Union ships started up
that, but they were sent running back downstream by fire boats
that the Confederacy had. This is where you get a highly
flammable boat and you add even more flammable stuff to it,
light it on fire, and just let it float down the river.
Most of the Union ships at that time were wooden and highly
combustible, so you got out of there so that you didn't lose
your ship. Additionally, 90 miles down
river from New Orleans, above the passes, were two forts.
Fort Jackson on the west side and Fort St. Philips on the
east bank, about a half mile down river.
Each fort was located on a slight bend of the river, which
caused vessels to have to slow down in order to make the turn.
In slowing down, they're more vulnerable targets.
They were going slower, they were there longer.
Each of those two Confederate forts were well manned and well
stocked with food, supplies, and ammunition.
The Union officer in charge of taking New Orleans was Admiral
David Porter, who was familiar with the river, having made at
least 30 passages up the river, or down the river, during his
naval career.
His force was comprised of 18 warships, having a total
of 250 heavy guns. They were supported by 20 large
schooners, each fitted out with 32-pound guns.
The 32-pound is the weight of the ball that was in the gun.
And one 13-inch mortar, that's the diameter of the mortar on
the foredeck of the ship.
Here's what they had to do to get by these two forts.
In addition, the Confederates had taken a bunch of hulks,
chained them together so they ran across the river.
That was another obstacle, how do you get by that when you're
being shelled all the time. Many attempts to take the two
forts failed. A two-week barrage of artillery
and mortars did not do the trick.
Finally, Admiral Farragut grew impatient.
He said we have to get on to New Orleans.
We can't keep dillydallying around here with these two
forts. His first step was to have the
gunboat Itaska break through the chain of ships.
Revving up his engines to full speed, the Itaska plowed into
the chains, snapping them. And with anchor chains hung over
the side as additional makeshift armor, and shells pouring into
the fort, the first of Farragut's ships, the gunboat
Cayuga, ran past the battery. They were hit 42 times.
The crew had laid flat on the deck, and only six men were
slightly injured. The remainder of the fleet
followed suit, destroying the fort as they proceeded on up the
river to New Orleans. Fourteen of Farragut's ships
made it safely past the forts. By daybreak, they anchored off
New Orleans. Without having to fire a shot at
that point, the city surrendered to Union troops.
Within two days, the two forts, Jackson and St. Philips
also surrendered. With New Orleans in Union hands,
Farragut now proceeded up river with several gunboats capturing
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Natchez, Mississippi,
by mid-May. The only Confederate stronghold
city remaining on the lower Mississippi was the city of
Vicksburg, Mississippi, which was regarded as the Gibralter of
the South. Starting on May 23, 1862, the
fleet shelled the city for several days, made no progress,
withdrew south for a while, went further up the river again,
shelled it for several more weeks with no result.
Success was also found during the winter of 1861-1862, with
then Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant, who at that time was
an inconspicuous commander of a military post in Cairo,
Illinois. He proposed a joint Army
expedition up the Tennessee to take Fort Henry.
Here you've got the Mississippi, the Ohio, and here's the
Tennessee. And right above here is the
Cumberland.
The two main characters in that were Grant and Admiral Foote.
The plan was approved on January 30, 1862.
And Grant with 15,000 men, supported by armored gunboats
and river craft, under the command of Foote proceeded down
the Tennessee to Fort Donelson. The seven gunboats shelled the
fort for several days. The commander of Fort Henry came
to the conclusion that it was not tenable to hold it, so they
moved inland to Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River, which is
only about two miles. Here is one of the river
gunboats that the Union had at that time.
Here is Fort Donelson, which is on the Cumberland River.
With Fort Henry in Union hands, the Tennessee River was now open
all the way down to Alabama. The attack on Fort Donelson was
delayed until February 12, due to inclement weather.
With some 27,000 Federal troops coming as an overland attack,
they also then came down the river.
The Confederates transferred 12,000 reinforcements to
Fort Donelson, making the strong position.
Its earthworks were at 100 feet above the river.
The outlying system of rifle pits embraced an area of about
100 acres. The naval bombardment that had
reduced Fort Henry was not as effective on Donelson, and the
Confederate artillery caused damage to several Union vessels.
The eventual loss of the fort was not due to military
superiority, it was due to a divided Confederate command.
Neither of the commanding generals could decide what to
do, so nothing got done. So, on February 16, the
Confederate commander, Brigadier General Simon Buckner, who was
an old friend and classmate of Grant's, realizing the situation
was hopeless, asked for the terms of surrender.
Soon afterwards, Grant sent his famous message: "No terms except
unconditional surrender can be accepted.
I propose to move immediately upon your works."
The terms were accepted. Between 12,000 and 15,000
Confederate troops surrendered, 20,000 rifles, 48 pieces of
artillery, 17 heavy guns, 2,000 to 4,000 horses, and a large
quantity of stores and munitions fell into Federal hands.
The Army-Navy battles of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson dealt
the Confederacy a blow from which it never really fully
recovered. Kentucky and most of middle and
west Tennessee had to be abandoned.
The vital industrial and transportation center of
Nashville was permanently out of Southern hands.
Foreign governments also took notice of these situations, and
this started to adversely affect the credits of the Confederacy.
Now proceeding down the Tennessee River, Grant and his
naval colleagues landed at Pittsburgh Landing.
They're almost down now to the Mississippi border.
They put ashore and things seemed to be going pretty well
when all of a sudden, 40,000 unknown and unsuspected
Confederate troops attacked them.
This became the two-day battle of Shiloh.
Shiloh is located on the Tennessee River, as I indicated,
near the border with Mississippi.
Fortunately, the river provided access for quick reinforcements
that came and saved the day the second day of the battle for
Grant. But the losses were
unprecedented and terrible. There were 50,000 Union and
41,000 Confederates wounded. There were 13,000 Union and
11,000 Confederate soldiers killed.
Don't forget, the way they kept their statistics, the dead were
dead on the battle field. They didn't count you if you
died a few days later. So an awful lot of the wounded
became fatalities, as well. The immediate death toll was
more than had occurred in all previous American wars combined.
In the spring of 1862, a few miles up the Mississippi River
from New Madrid, Missouri, is a place called Island Number 10.
The Mississippi River numbers their islands, at least major
islands. And Number 10 had a strong
Confederate fort on the island and on the Missouri side, as
well. They had five batteries.
All told, there were 50 canons, with calibers from eight-inch,
downward. They covered the river for three
miles. To clear away this Confederate
obstacle that blocked the river south, Admiral Foote, once his
force was assembled, proceeded from Cairo on March 14, 1862,
down to the vicinity of Island Number 10.
The mortar boat anchored along the bank continued a two-week
fire on the island, which sustained no material damage.
The Union General Henry Pope was advancing out of Missouri, to
the west, coming with reinforcements, but had no way
to get across the Mississippi River due to the fact that all
the available ships south of Island 10 has been used to keep
the Confederate Navy at bay down river from there.
He suggested that they run the gauntlet around Island 10,
get a couple of ships down to New Madrid, so he could load
them and take them back across, and then attack the island.
This was regarded as too risky by Foote.
So they continued to shell another couple of weeks, really
to no avail. Finally, they said something has
to be done around here, so they said, okay, we're going to buy
into General Pope's plan. Commander Henry Walke, of the
USS Carondelet-- Here's a picture of it here.
This is what the armored river vessels were like at that time.
He volunteered for the mission. He reinforced his armament with
timbers and additional anchor chains over the side.
He also secured a coal barge to his vulnerable port side,
hopefully to absorb any incoming shot.
Slowly, at 10:00 at night, they set off down river, all his
lights turned off on the vessel, on April 4, 1862.
Periodically illuminated by lightning flashes during a
severe thunderstorm, he did get past two of the batteries.
Well, as would have it, a stack ignited, and that goes up just
like a torch. All of a sudden, they knew he
was there. All the other guns came to bear
and fired upon him. Walke ran up full speed ahead to
complete the run as quickly as possible.
The Carondelet amazingly ran the gauntlet without taking a single
hit. She docked at New Madrid at
1:00am. And here you have Island 10.
Pope lost no time in embarking his troops.
On April 7, they landed them on the Tennessee shore across from
Island 10. The river crossing was proceeded
by two gunboats whose mission was to silence the Confederate
batteries. This they did.
The Union landed without the loss of a single man.
Finding itself completely cut off, Island Number 10
surrendered to Foote that afternoon.
The river was now clear all the way from Cairo to Memphis.
Here we have Henry and Donelson, Island 10, Memphis over here on
the river. Union General Halleck with a
force of 100,000 troops were at Corinth, Mississippi, down here.
Their job was to proceed northwest toward Memphis.
The Confederate commanding officer in Memphis had
insufficient troops to defend the city.
He ordered it to be evacuated. At the same time on June 6,
1862, the Union naval flotilla comprised of rams under Flag
Officer Davis, proceeded south down the Mississippi from Cairo.
It destroyed the Confederate fleet, as intervening in a brisk
battle. From the heights above Memphis,
the citizens could stand there and watch the naval engagement.
The city thereupon surrendered, and now the Mississippi was open
all the way to Vicksburg.
So here we come now from Memphis, go down here to
Vicksburg. By mid-1862, the only strong
point remaining on the river now was Vicksburg.
It's nearby Port Hudson Fort in Louisiana.
Grant sent Major General Sherman over land from Memphis towards
Vicksburg in December 1862 to January 1863, creating a
vulnerable 200 mile line of communication, that was
constantly raided, resulting in Sherman being bogged down before
he got to Vicksburg. Grant then decided that a joint
Navy expedition against the Confederate strong point
initially would utilize 45,000 men.
Ultimately, it used 75,000 Union troops.
Vicksburg was the most protected location on the river.
Its bluffs rose 250 feet above the water, extended for 100
miles along the river. To the north, lay the
impenetrable Yazoo River swamps that went for another 60
miles. Confederate fortifications
extended then for another 10 miles below the city.
It could not be successfully assaulted from the river, and
sailing past was very risky. The naval officer in charge of
the Vicksburg operation was Admiral Porter.
Here's a shot of him here. Here's running the gauntlet at
Vicksburg. You can see the bluffs up there.
Here's Porter and his staff on his flagship.
Vicksburg was defended by 30,000 men.
There were many more troops about 40 miles way, at Jackson,
Mississippi. Sherman, however, was successful
in isolating these additional troops, who never got to
participate in the Vicksburg battle.
After two failed assaults and 47 days of siege, with nearly daily
artillery and naval gun bombardment on the city of
Vicksburg, the city was forced to surrender.
The campaign since March 29, had claimed 10,142 Union and 9,000
Confederate deaths. Confederate General Pemberton
hoped to receive terms of surrender less than the normal
unconditional surrender from Grant.
Grant at first held out, but then realizing, what is he going
to do with 30,000 wounded, hungry, dejected Confederate
prisoners, how is he going to-- It'd take too many troops to
take them north and get them out of there.
He decided to do what was then the gentlemanly thing in the
military, to give these troops and take their parole.
That's their promise not to fight again.
Those days, as you know, are long gone.
He also had a psychological component.
He said, look, if 30,000 wounded, bedraggled and dejected
people go back home down south, the word is going to spread
things aren't so good. It could be demoralizing for the
entire South. So he told Pemberton that he
would agree to Pemberton's request and take the soldier's
parole. Port Hudson on the Mississippi,
just north of Vicksburg, fell to five days later on July 9, 1863,
thereby yielding the Union the total command of the entire
length of the Mississippi River and isolating all the
Trans-Mississippi Department, that is, Western Mississippi
Confederate soldiers. Grant wrote Lincoln on
July 9, 1863, his famous announcement, "The Father of
waters goes again unvexed to the sea."
The simultaneous victories of Vicksburg and Gettysburg lifted
the moral of the President, his cabinet, and enhanced the
status of the Union overseas. Without the approval of
Congress, Lincoln concurred in Scott's idea about embargoing
and blockading the South.
This is the area that would have to be blockaded, the dark line
and the three lines are the four separate blockading squadrons.
This was a Confederate blockade runner.
The blockade started slowly. It was ineffectual at first.
But over time, it became more and more effective.
Within a year, all of the ports other than Beaumont, North
Carolina, had already fallen to the Union.
The South was feeling the pinch. It was being choked to death.
With the result that the Union was going to be victorious.
Part of the countermeasures the South took were the blockade
runners, which were very high speed boats that would go
out to the British ports in Nova Scotia, the Bahamas, Bermuda,
and then also in Havana, to smuggle cotton and tobacco out
and to take stores and military supplies in.
Throughout the Civil War, the sailors of both navies were
undermanned. Both armies demanded more and
more manpower. There were, obviously, black
soldiers in the Union Navy. And surprisingly, there were
some blacks in the South. A black could only serve in the
Confederate Navy with the permission of his owner.
You could be 14 years old and serve in the Confederate Navy,
or 13 years old in the Union Navy.
But if you were under 21, you had to get your parents'
permission to serve. The daily routine on the
blockade was extremely boring. It was monotonous.
Serving on the ships was totally different than the old days of
sail. On sailing ships, you spent most
of your time outdoors. In these new ships, you're
indoors. It was hot.
You had boilers. Smoke was coming down.
Coal dust was coming down. Even on daily operations,
sailors would just rush to the windows to get some fresh air.
It was not a pleasant way to serve.
The hard-won triumph of the Mississippi River didn't mean
the immediate end of the war. The blockade though, finally
brought the strangle knot that Scott had projected.
Colonel Josiah Gorgas, who was the chief of Confederate
ordnance after the loss of the Trans-Mississippi campaign said,
"Yesterday, we rode the pinnacle of success.
Today, absolute ruin seems to be our position."
Naval warfare led to many inventions during the Civil War.
Among these, iron ships, revolving turrets,
rifled artillery, sea mines, the screw propeller, steam power
replacing wind sail as a means of propulsion, and shells that
exploded upon impact, not to mention rifled artillery, which
is far more accurate than the old canon ball type.
Scott's scoffed at "Anaconda Plan" indeed did work.
The Union's coastal blockade gradually strangled
the Confederacy to death. With greatly diminished exports
and imports, the South was destined to lose, if the North
could only hang on and keep the pressure on long enough.
Thank you. ( applause )